


Red Sun Blues

by GreywolftheWanderer



Category: Darkover Series - Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: A Whole New World Challenge, Alternate Universe, Canon-Level Misogny, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2016, offscreen dubcon, snarktastic dialogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:48:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreywolftheWanderer/pseuds/GreywolftheWanderer
Summary: My challenge response is about, who are John Sheppard and Rodney McKay, born not here, but into the Terran Federation and the Darkovan Comyn respectively?  For reference this takes place maybe 20 years after the Forbidden Tower incidents.  And yes, I am cheerfully butchering quite a bit of Darkover canon.  Fair go, but MZB did it first, nies?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This is my NaNo 2016 project, using the challenge Keira Marcos put up, “A whole new world”, to take one set of characters from one universe, and have them born into in a completely different universe. Not a fusion, but more the question of who would these familiar people be if born into this universe instead of their own. The challenge is being hosted over on Rough Trade, under the customary rules and restrictions, and I heartily commend it to all readers, there's a bunch of really good stories this cycle! The reason mine is posted here and not there is because *I* spaced and missed the deadline. And we're not talking oops, was that last night/12 hours ago… Not even close. I'z a talented lad, mes dudes et dudettes. I missed that suckah by 2 full weeks! *proud grin* So it goes, yeah? Y por eso, this is posted here. 
> 
> For some damn fine reading this November (or anytime), go check it out. And play nice over there, or Keira'll kick yer arse up between yer ear'oles an' you'll deserve it, won't ya then.
> 
> Meanwhile, comments here are welcome to a degree, but I probably won't respond to you until the challenge is over, which means December at the earliest. Be thou warned. And no-one should feel pressed to comment here either; 'tis not at all what the challenge is about, and not commenting will _not_ make me stop writing! I'm posting here to challenge myself.
> 
> Also, No Crit Please, it's NaNo! After it's all done I _might_ look for a beta, but that day? Is _not_ today.

The pistol's magazine was empty yet again and John had barely noticed, his hands working then stopping purely by habit, without any conscious will. Fortunately, there was no-one else around to notice his brief lapse. He had the range all to himself this afternoon, which was how he liked it best. Grateful for that small mercy, he pushed the button to bring his target up for inspection. As was usually the case, the familiar routines of checking his gear, loading and firing had calmed his mind and steadied his hands. He'd needed that, after a pretty uncomfortable and unsettling morning. 

The target wasn't perfect, but he'd put a full ten rounds in the center circle, and one in each eye. One more round had hit the torso lower down, one had gone through the base of the neck, and none had missed the target. Much better. He unclipped the target, folded it, and stuck it in his pocket before he broke the pistol down to clean it and put it away. Again his hands moved automatically, in patterns of long-familiar muscle memory.

It had been 3 years now since the last time he'd been in an actual battle, 3 years since he'd fired any kind of weapon at another human being. In fact, the last time he'd done that was during the long and bloody – and ultimately useless – campaign on Wolf 359 _beta_ – but the length of time that had passed since then didn't seem to matter. He still felt half-naked when he wasn't carrying a weapon, and he greatly preferred to be carrying _several_ weapons. He was still acutely uncomfortable in any kind of a crowd, turning his back to a window or a door, or letting anyone get behind him, and it was often an effort when out in public not to flinch and give himself away.

The psych department called it hypervigilance in their public service announcements, but to John it was simply the way he thought and lived now, necessary and natural as taking his next breath. He had been a soldier as well as a pilot long before that campaign began, and he really didn't expect his habits to ever change at this late date, even though he'd only been flying Mapping and Exploration missions recently. On paper, he'd been seconded to Mapping and Exploration because he'd disobeyed orders to try and save another team back on Wolf 359 _beta_ – only to find they'd already been dead for hours before he even got to their crash site. Add to that, his own flitter had been shot down as well, in addition to the first one. But it was probably taking a swing at the bastard who'd ordered him not to go in the first place that had really sealed his fate. Colonel Kinsey's dad was some kind of big noise on the Terran Federation Council. John was actually kind of surprised he hadn't been thrown in the stockade. 

Worth it, and then some. The man had a glass jaw, and had squealed like a schoolgirl when John broke it. Still, it'd been one hell of a clusterfuck, all the way around. After all the drama, all he'd managed to bring back were their ID tags – but at least their families got that much. 

So now he had a black mark on his record. Big deal. It wasn't like he was going to draw down on a fellow pilot or one of the crew, much less random passing civilians. He sure as hell wasn't the only guy on base who startled easy, for fuck's sake. And okay, he had some bad dreams. All right, a lot of bad dreams. Again, not the only guy on base like that, not by a long shot. 

Aloft, though, he did spend a fair bit of time firmly reminding himself that his Survey plane was fine as it was, and that a fighter jet's weapons were not needed for taking visual footage and instrument scans of rocks and hills uninhabited by anything bigger or nastier than lizards, bugs, and goats. But he knew better than to admit any such thing anywhere except in the privacy of his own mind. Once again, it was a damned good thing his bosses couldn't read his mind.

At least whatever had been fucking with his head the last few days had stopped for now. He'd been afflicted for most of the past week with intermittent headaches, bouts of lightheadedness and nausea, random chills and hot flashes. He'd been dreading having to talk to someone in Medical about it if he was assigned a new mission. John had no interest whatsoever in being grounded, or getting poked and prodded and scanned, much less being ordered to talk to some nosy Space Service psychiatrist. Nor did he want any notations made on his record about “subject is having adjustment problems”. Those kinds of interviews and notations just never ended well for anyone except the shrinks. John was already thought strange enough by his fellows without doing anything to remind everyone of what a gianormous, weirdo misfit he _really_ was. Just because he didn't like people getting behind him, or enjoy getting falling-down drunk and puking, much less paying random uncaring and oblivious strangers to get him off, the way so many of the others did. 

Still, he would have forced himself to go to Medical if the dizziness had continued, never mind that by doing so he would have made his latest CO's entire _year_. If a mission had come up last week, he would have had to report himself unfit, rather than chance crashing and getting his own crew killed.

Anyway, Colonel Edwards, like several of his past COs, made no secret of his opinion of John, nor ever had. It was probably impossible for it to get any lower than it already was.

_Whatever_. 

Lately he felt like he'd spent his whole damned life hiding as much of himself as humanly possible. He'd grown up hearing his father recite a whole list of boring shit that even crappy adopted pseudo-Sheppards like John were expected to be and to do, and a bunch of other shit that Sheppards absolutely were _never_ allowed to do, but fuckit, he never had been any good at blind obedience. His father had David now, anyway, a new son from a new wife, from his own bloodline, to follow all his orders and serve as the Sheppard heir-apparent. And much good may it do him.

_Probably cut me out of the will the instant the kid was born. Not like I care_. Ironic as hell that it was probably only his father's name and connections that had kept him out of the stockade. They must not have talked to the man at all, or he'd probably have told them to let John rot.

He had constantly chafed at and rebelled against his father's orders growing up, and substituting the Space Service rules for his father's hadn't really changed him all that much. His Service jacket was a pretty even mix of reprimands for insubordination, uniform and/or grooming fails, and commendations for valour and meritorious service under fire. He was pretty sure the only reason he still had a job was that he could outfly most of the rest of his squadron put together, and he knew how to keep his mouth shut about any past missions he might or might not have flown, much less who might or might not have ordered them or why.

The Space Service needed John's skills, but it was pretty unlikely now that he'd ever get a promotion past his current rank of Captain, or be given command of a spaceship, much less an on-planet base. He had no gift at all for the sort of politicking those paths required, nor had he ever, despite his father's best efforts to beat it into him. All John had ever really wanted was to fly, and he could never have flown the kinds of craft he wanted if he'd stayed on his father's estate or meekly gone into the family business, the way he was supposed to.

As far as he could tell, none of his fellow Service members had the same trouble acclimating that he did. Nobody else ever mentioned feeling like they were living in the wrong place, or the wrong time period. Nobody else he knew disliked the uniform blandness of Terran food, the sterile sameness of the barracks, or the very taste of the air and colour of the light indoors. 

Only John actively enjoyed finding and tasting new kinds of food offworld, or exploring alien cities while on leave. And whether he was flying Survey missions, functioning as air support for Terran ground troops, or stuck groundside on medical leave, he never felt at home on base, and never had, though he'd lived on Earth his whole life before joining the Space Service. Somehow the very things everyone else found comforting felt disorienting and plain _wrong_. 

But Terran Standard environments were the same regardless of the planets that held them. Gravity might change from world to world, and the quality of the light outdoors differed from one solar system to the next, but inside, every Terran Federation barracks was designed and built like every other one, right down to the colours and patterns of paint and furnishings. The colour temperature of the interior light never varied from Sol-standard, the ambient temperature indoors never changed, and the uniform he wore stayed the same no matter whether he was on board a ship, planetside, or in the air. The very air was thin and dry indoors, nearly bereft of scents other than machine oil, plastics, and a faint tang of ozone. Everything always normal, just the same as usual – but John hated all of it. Even the thin synthetic fabrics everyone swore were best slithered oddly against his skin, making him constantly feel either too warm or too cold, but never at ease. He didn't know what the air indoors should smell like or feel like, but no matter what base he was sent to, he never really felt at home.

What kinds of conditions would feel right? John had no idea whatsoever. But he kept on searching just the same, full of a vague dissatisfaction that he couldn't begin to articulate, even if he'd known anyone he felt safe confiding in. He'd even thought on and off for the last couple of years about leaving the Service, but had no idea where he would go or what to do with himself otherwise. Going back to Earth and returning to his so-called family was right out of the question. 

At least with the Service he could sometimes escape into the peace and silence that he could only find aloft, and so far that had been enough, if only barely. But he kept his eyes open, still hoping after all these years to find that place where he truly belonged and was welcome.

He'd just come back from a four-day leave spent hiking and messing about in the bush when a grungy-looking recruiting flyer posted in the mess hall caught his eye. They were looking for pilots to carry out mining surveys on a newly opened L-class planet called Cottman IV. The Service was seeking volunteers, and there was a hefty pay bonus for those willing to relocate long term to an alien world. Not many were willing, and that was all to the good as far as he was concerned. His CO had made no secret of wishing John would leave, anyway. John just smirked – what the hell, it made for better odds of success with his reassignment request.

Everywhere he'd been, even on alien planets, most people went out of their way not to experience anything the least bit unfamiliar, and always their rationalizations were that this was already the best way to live, and these were the most efficient and ideal conditions in which to do their work.

John might have felt more motivated if he got to fly longer hours, or more frequently, but even in the Space Service most flying opportunities came few and far between. Most of their missions were spent on board ship or on the ground, whether in garrison duty, or providing security for diplomatic or government personnel. 

John had joined the Service so he could fly the good aircraft, whether that was on Survey missions, as air support for the military, or otherwise – but there were only so many pilots needed at any given time, and the rest of his time was spent dirtside, regardless of his skills in the air or in orbit. And barracks living had gotten very old very fast; he'd never been the gregarious sort, though he could fake it well enough to pass if need be. But he'd found that living so closely with so many people was excruciating. Given his druthers John would have roomed by himself, or better yet, lived off-base. But he didn't rank high enough for either to be an option, nor would he yet for years to come.

Didn't really matter anyway. He was already bored of this latest posting, and he'd only been here a few months. The food in town here actually sucked worse than the food on base. That took talent. So when he found the recruiting flyer sticking out from behind a listing of media for trade, he snagged it to study at leisure. On later rereading, he decided to go for it. At least this place sounded different from the same old same old, and the pay bonus would come in useful, too. 

No, it wasn't the same as his childhood dreams of becoming a First-In Scout. But then, he wasn't a ten-year-old boy any more, either.

Just for the hell of it, he dug out and flipped his grandfather's lucky coin, and it came up Heads. Acting quickly, before he could talk himself out of it, John logged on to the Personnel department server and filled out the transfer request in all its boring detail.

What the hell, it could hardly be worse than his current situation, and maybe it would be more interesting to boot. Not too likely his CO would refuse, when he'd been trying to harass John into quitting for weeks now.

Anyway, not like he had a helluva lot to lose at the moment.

* * * * * * *

Jeanne MacKay-Syrtis, _Comynara_ and _leronis_ -in-training on Neskaya Tower's second matrix circle under Elorie Lindir, Keeper, stamped her foot peevishly, annoyed at her older brother's stubbornness and refusal to be swayed. “Come on, Rhodni – you know Father will have his way on this in the end. He always does, and it's not like he's sending me off to be a washerwoman or some such!” She'd been waxing and waning hot and cold over the proposed betrothal for days now. Earlier this morning she'd been threatening a hunger strike if forced to leave Neskaya Tower to get married, and now she was practically professing eagerness at the prospect.

Rhodni MacKay-Syrtis, _laranzu, Comynaru_ and heir to Falconsward, made himself take a deep, slow breath and say nothing until he had his temper at least partly under control. He considered himself a scientist, and thought anyone who venerated the Comyn just because of tradition was a moron. He had Terranan friends – well, acquaintances, at least – in Thendara, and was well aware of how Comyn marriage customs were seen among the Terranan, much less the whole hereditary aristocracy thing. Rhodni had been required to attend Comyn Council meetings since he turned 16, since he was heir to his Domain as his father's only surviving son. He hated the Council meetings, and found the required formalities excruciating. Truth be told, left to himself Rhodni would never come out of the Tower at all, unless directly ordered to by his Keeper. 

People were imprecise, and difficult to manage at the best of times. Even large and powerful matrices were easy to predict by comparison. And he was a high-level matrix technician, dammit, first trained by Cleindori Aillard, once of Arilinn, then-Keeper of the so-called Forbidden Tower, more years ago now than Rhodni liked to think about or admit to in public. 

He was the leader of Neskaya Tower's third matrix circle, who stood in place of a Keeper. His circle specialized in mining and refining rare metals by _laran_ , where the Terranan would have had to dig enormous open pits and destroy the land. Why, Leonie Hastur her own self once told him that if Rhodni had been born female, he could have served as Keeper; his _laran_ and control were strong enough. He would be the first to insist Jeanne be allowed to choose for herself what she wanted to do. 

The current problem for Rhodni was figuring out what she _did_ want to do. Normally he just rode roughshod over everyone else in the room till he got his way, but his sister was different. She was his only surviving sibling, for one thing. His own mother had died just days after bearing Jeanne, and there had been six years of miscarriages between their births. Seven other half-siblings born to their father from two different women had either been stillborn, or died of threshold sickness in their teens the way too damned many Comyn children did. For another thing, he was certain Jeanne knew as well as Rhodni did what their father's real goal was. Padraig-Mikhail Leynier-MacKay of MacKay, _Comynaru_ and Lord of Falconsward, was completely besotted with Luisa, the youngest daughter of the glorified bandit currently styling himself Lord Coryn Ridenow of Edelweiss, and never mind that the girl in question was two years younger than Rhodni, because _that_ wasn't creepy at all. 

Their father had convinced himself yet again that all he needed was a new wife, because of course the failure to breed new children for the Comyn must be the fault of the women, not himself.

Coryn Ridenow, certainly no fool whatever else he might or might not be, had agreed to permit the marriage provided his youngest son Allart was betrothed to Jeanne. If the miniature sent to Falconsward was accurate, the boy was comely enough, for a barbarian. And Padraig was determined to have his way, even if that meant marrying Jeanne off to some son of a _Drylander_ in trade. It wasn't but two generations since the bastards lived out in the desert and kept their women in chains, like _animals_. And the Comyn Council wouldn't do a damned thing to stop it from happening, not when their whole society was held together by such ties, and especially not when the so-called “Ridenow” of Serrais were siring more offspring, and healthier, than any of the other Comyn families these days.

Of _course_ they were. Two generations previous the “Ridenow” lordlings were still living in Shainsa, out among the Dry Towns. They weren't part of the too-closely-inbred Comyn until a generation ago, when the Serrais Domain's male bloodline had finally bred itself into complete extinction, and the few surviving female cousins had invited them to come in and take over the Domain. Even the famed Terranan medicines and surgeries hadn't been of any use. It was all a huge scandal at the Council meetings in Thendara, but Rhodni didn't care one bit for outraged Comyn sensibilities. What he did care about was seeing his sister spared from breeding frail doomed child after frail doomed child, all her intelligence and fire wasted in the pursuit of useless alliances with clapped-out so-called noble families. But Padraig's plan marry her off to this Serrais boy was no real improvement. They hadn't even met him yet – he might be simple-minded, or worse, headblind – and there was no telling if he'd treat Jeanne well, much less allow her to stay in the Tower and keep working after the betrothal.

In their mad pursuit of ever-greater power and ever more exotic _laran_ , the Comyn completely ignored every principle of sound genetics as practiced by even the poorest of peasant farmers. And it was their wives and daughters paying the highest price for such idiocy. _Duty to caste and clan, my great-aunt Meredith's flabby old arse!_

Had their father proposed almost any other alliance, Rhodni might have agreed, provided Jeanne were willing herself. This Allart Ridenow person was young, and presumably free of at least the worst of the Comyn burden of genetic defects. But Jeanne was only just fifteen this Midsummer, and in no wise ready to leave her work in the Tower just to marry some pampered lowlands lordling and start churning out babies. Add to that the family's Dry Town origin, and Rhodni felt that there wasn't a damned one of those assholes mentally fit to marry his only sister, and he was determined not to let it happen until Jeanne herself decided she'd met the right partner. Which she as yet had not done.

Padraig was woman-blind, was the problem, thinking with his little head instead of the bigger one. It was partly because their father had very little _laran_ of his own, in Rhodni's opinion, that he kept trying to trade his daughter away. Few Tower _laranzuin_ could accept a binding with a headblind or mentally incompatible partner. Rhodni himself was only spared their father's machinations by the well-known fact that he was completely tyrannical and impossible to please on his good days, of which there were not many. Not even an ambitious swindler like Padraig could put perfume on that pig.

Damn the Council for their stupidity, and for the sheer waste! As it was now, even Arilinn Tower was having trouble staying staffed – one of the three Circles there was also currently being run by a matrix technician, because the Towers could never find enough women both willing and strong enough to function as Keeper. And of the few women who could function as Keeper, many were forced by their families to leave the Tower, come home, get married and start having children. This being the case, the Council's goal of expanding their world's use of matrix technology was unlikely to happen.

Rhodni wasn't sure that was the wisest move, anyway. It was no secret to the Keepers and the Tower workers that the Terranan had been sniffing around Darkover for a while now, hoping to get their hands on some matrix crystals of their own. As of yet, they had been unsuccessful. But sooner or later, they would get their hands on one or more of the starstones. And then they would try to make weapons out of them, as the Terranan did with most things. And that was frankly horrifying, for the Terranan did not follow the Compact of Varzil the Good, which forbade the use of weaponry that left the wielder's hand. The idea of them gaining the ability to make clingfire, or bonewater dust, to blight wells and shatter walls, in addition to the already terrifying arsenal of their own making – well, Rhodni wasn't going to be doing much sleeping in the near future.

Pox-rotted six-fathered whoresons, the lot of them, children playing with explosives and matches. The Terranan were arrogantly overconfident, and they had absolutely _no_ idea what was at stake here.

What could possibly go wrong with that plan? Unfortunately, Rhodni's brain was all too happy to conjure up the possibilities.

“– Rhodni! Stop ignoring me!” 

“What? _Ow!_ ” Jeanne had just swatted the side of his head. “Stop that! I was listening.”

“Oh, of course you were. That's why I had to call your name three different times just now. Is that what they're calling listening these days? Good to know.”

“All right, you made your point. What did you want to say?” Might as well get it over with, Jeanne was no easier to discourage than Rhodni himself, so she wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

She met his eyes fearlessly, her own just as blue and as bright as his own, her hair new-polished copper where his own was a darker red. “I just think there's no harm in meeting the boy. If he's completely horrible, we'll need to make other plans. But he might _not_ be horrible. I don't approve of the Drylander customs at all, and have no intention of ever obeying such rubbish. But those were his grandfather's times, not his. You're the one who always says we shouldn't be bound by our forebears' idiocies, right?”

Huh. He hadn't actually thought of it like that. He glared at her just the same – she would expect nothing less in any case. “You may have a point. But as a matter of practice, it may be more difficult to back out after meeting him. Still. We should ask Elorie, to be thorough. It may be that the Tower will be amenable to helping you, if you do meet him and simply cannot bear the boy. And we can certainly force them to wait until you come of age. These are not the Ages of Chaos, and our father can wait for his bride, it won't kill him.” The two of them exchanged nearly identical lopsided grins. They'd been outsmarting their father for years already, and the man had no idea whatsoever.

In any battle of wits, Padraig was nearly an unarmed man. Near as Rhodni could figure, he and Jeanne had gotten their brains from their mother – his memories of her were somewhat blurred by time, but he did remember her waxing lyrical on the failings of various revered Council members, not to mention her own family. He had taken her as his example, to be honest.

“So, we are agreed then?”

Rhodni nodded. “We are agreed. Father will probably have him meet you fairly soon, and once that happens, we can make plans as needed.” 

Jeanne nodded. “Thanks, Rhodni. Father _never_ asks me what I want to do. He never has.”

Rhodni grinned. “Any time, seriously. Mother would come back from the dead just to beat some sense into me otherwise, I guarantee it. Besides, there aren't that many people out there smart enough to even get out of their own way. We few who _are_ smarter need to stick together, because nobody else will be of any help, most of the time.”

Hopefully this Ridenow boy would prove tolerable. As for waiting till Jeanne came of age – not optional. Their father would simply have to wait a little longer, whether he liked it or not.

Actually, this would be a perfect time for Rhodni to visit his great-aunt Meredith. The woman had an uncanny ability to ferret out the latest in scandalous gossip, and she kept quite a good wine cellar, too. Purely for research purposes, of course.

* * * * * * *


End file.
